Revelation of Blood (Skye Morrison Vampire Series, #5)

by J. L. McCoy

  “I don’t remember him,” I whispered as I watched her down her drink. “I just remember you crying.”

  “Well thank God for that,” she said, relieved.

  Archer was silent during our exchange and I glanced up at him to see what he thought of the story. He was studying my mother, a slight crease between his eyebrows, but other than that he was giving nothing away. I put my hand on his knee and tried to read his emotions but all I was picking up was anger and resolution. They confused me and I squeezed his knee questioningly, trying to get his attention, but his eyes were only for my mother.

  “What was his name?” Archer asked finally.

  “It doesn’t matter,” my mother said, angrily slamming her lowball glass on the table top. “Nothing about that man matters.”

  I was scared to push her but I really wanted to know, especially if my father was still alive…not that I ever planned on meeting him, but still. It would be nice to know the name of the man who helped create me. “Mama, I want to know his name.”

  “No, Skye,” she crossed her arms over her chest and gave me a look from my childhood that still scared me to this day. It was ‘The Eye’. Every mother on the planet had their own version of it.

  “Steven Edward Mitchell,” Archer whispered to me and my mother’s eyes flashed with rage.

  “How DARE you speak his name!” my mother screamed as she stood and threw her empty glass at Archer’s head. I had previously thought I’d seen her at her angriest, but nothing compared to seeing her like this. She looked murderous. My arm quickly flashed out to grab the glass as soon as it left her hand. Her eyes grew wide and her bottom lip began to tremble as she fought off tears. “You are not my daughter anymore,” she whispered, looking disgusted, terrified, and her heart aching with fresh loss.

  “Yes, I am,” I gasped, utterly shocked.

  “No, you’re not,” she whispered as her tears spilled down onto her cheeks. “My daughter died the second you ingested their blood.” She grabbed her purse off the seat beside her and quickly walked across the floor to the entrance.

  “Mom! Please. Don’t leave me!” I cried out as I flashed to stand. “Mama!”

  Archer grabbed my wrist, stopping me from following her, as he wrapped his other hand around my waist. “She just needs some time,” he whispered into my hair as we watched her exit the club on a sob.

  I was devastated by her reaction to me and held on to Archer as he gripped me tightly to him. “She doesn’t need more time, Archer. I’ve become the very thing she was protecting me from. I’m a monster in her eyes… worse than that. I am my father, the person she despises most in this world.”

  Archer growled fiercely and gripped my upper arms tightly as he got in my face. “You are your own person, Skye Morrison! You are not Amun and you are not your father. You are no one but yourself. Do not let her prejudices effect you.”

  I pushed him away from me and turned my back on him as I tried to come to terms with what had just happened with my mother. After hearing her story, it was no wonder why she never let herself get close to another man. Reading between the lines, it was apparent that she loved my father very much at one point. She opened herself up to someone, only to have her heart crushed as he left her pregnant and utterly alone.

  “You don’t get to push me away from you,” Archer growled as he roughly grabbed me and spun me back into his arms. “I don’t care how pissed off you are right now, Skye, you don’t get to push me away.”

  “Oh, Archer,” I sniffed against his chest as tears pricked my eyes. “I’m sorry. She’ll just never accept me.”

  Archer sighed and held me tightly to his chest, cradling the back of my head with one strong hand. “She loves you.”

  “She loved the human Skye,” I whispered as I wiped the tear that had fallen and slowly stepped out of his arms. “Just like she loved my father.”

  Steven Edward Mitchell, I repeated his name in my head and something gradually clicked.

  “We… we have the same initials,” I whispered as I hugged myself. What an odd thing for my mother to do if she hated my father with such a passion. “She may have loathed my father after he became a vampire, but she gave me a part of him. What does that mean?” I was so confused.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hagan and Lochlan enter the room from the hallway.

  “Lamb o’ tha Lord Jaysus,” Lochlan shook his head with wide eyes. “Yer ma’s a fiery one! I see now where ya’ get it.”

  “You okay, Morrison?” Hagan asked carefully as he came to a stop in front of me and crossed his corded arms over his broad chest.

  “Hell no,” I shook my head honestly. “I just found out who my dad is and why he left us. I’ve wondered my entire life who my father was and finding out that he’s just some piece of shit Dark One is a little too much information to handle at the moment.”

  “Get the girl a drink,” Hagan growled to Lochlan as he grabbed my elbow and dragged me toward the bar.

  “Be easy with her, Hagan,” Archer warned behind me. “She’s holding on by a thread.”

  “I’m fine,” I mumbled as I took a seat on the red swivel stool. Truth be told, I was anything but fine… but they didn’t need to know that.

  “Bollox,” Lochlan scoffed as he took down a bottle of expensive scotch from the top shelf and poured me a double shot. “You go’ dat look on yer face, love.”

  “My mother hates me,” I whispered as I fought off a wave of stinging tears. “She will never accept the person I’ve become…never.”

  “To hell with her,” Hagan growled as he took a seat beside me. “Your mother refuses to see how special you are, how truly unique you’ve become, and if she wants to deny you…well fuck her.”

  “Hagan,” I gasped at his choice of language. I was the resident potty mouth in this family, not him. The harshness of his words surprised me.

  “It’s the truth, Morrison,” he leveled me with his serious stare. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with you.”

  “I’m her only child,” I bit my bottom lip as I stared at the scotch in front of me. “I said some really harsh things to her that I shouldn’t have. Oh, God. She can’t disown me. I have to go after her. I can’t lose her.”

  I flashed from my seat in a panic but was stopped a few feet from the front entrance by Hagan.

  “You’ll just make it worse,” he bit out as he struggled to hold me. “Archer, control your woman.”

  “Dammit, Hagan! Let go of me!” I yelled as I slapped at his hands.

  “Cion, please,” Archer said gently, wrapping his arms around my waist. “Just give her some time. Seeing you as a vampire was a shock for her. She just needs a few days to think things through. Your mother loves you and will come around.” Archer started lightly kissing my neck and I began to lose my fight. “Trust me, baby.”

  “What if you’re wrong?” I whispered as Hagan released me. I turned in Archer’s arms and buried my head in his chest. “I can’t lose her, Archer. I can’t. It’ll kill me.”

  “I’m not wrong,” he whispered back as he softly kissed the top of my head. “You’ll see.”

  Chapter Four

  I awoke the next morning alone in Archer’s bed, having skipped out on work on account of my sour mood and my need to pack for my trip to Boston. Archer had crawled into bed at some point during the early morning hours and pulled my back to his front, spooning me, as I pretended to be asleep. There was so much on my mind, what with my upcoming Sacred Vow Ceremony and the fact that my only family on this earth wanting nothing more to do with me, that I didn’t feel like playing the doting, attentive girlfriend that I normally was. He had kissed my neck, mumbled an ‘I love you’ and went straight to sleep.

  Now I was alone as I stretched and sat up in his large, four-poster bed, my mind a swirl of painful memories of my mother telling me that I was no longer her daughter. I sighed as I threw the covers back and trekked into Archer’s bathroom for my morning shower.

  You have
to get a handle on yourself, I thought as I lathered up my long locks. You can’t be depressed your whole trip. Truth be told, I was a bit nervous too. Not only was I meeting some of the big wigs in Archer’s race for my Sacred Vow Ceremony, but I was also going to see Jameson for the first time in weeks. His band, The Manky Langer, was playing the last stop of their tour and Archer and I had been planning on surprising him at the show since before I was made vampire. If all went as intended, Jameson was going to come home with us; something I was both nervous and excited about. I missed him like crazy and desperately wanted him back in my life. I was willing to do anything to get him to forgive me and become friends again. The likelihood of that happening looked pretty slim, based on the last time I saw him and learned the extent of his broken heart, but I was more than willing to try.

  “Honey? You in there?” I heard Trey call out as I rinsed the soapy suds off my body.

  “Yeah,” I called back as I turned off the water and grabbed a towel. “Just a second, hon.”

  I quickly dried off, wrapped myself in my black silk robe and put my wet hair up in a towel to dry before I stepped back out into Archer’s room. “Morning, Trey. What’s up?”

  Trey smiled at me mysteriously as he held something behind his back. I could tell from his emotions that he was excited about what he had in his hands. “Since we can’t make the trip with you to Boston for the Vow Ceremony, we all pitched in and got you a little something.”

  “Oh you did, did you?” I grinned as I stopped in front of him. “That’s sweet, honey. What is it?”

  Trey brought a small, rectangle present from behind his back and held it out between us. It was beautifully wrapped in gold and accented with black, curly ribbons.

  I tentatively took the box and gently tore the decoration from it. Inside the wrapping was a black, velvet jewelry box; too big to be earrings or a ring. My eyes met his briefly and I smiled excitedly before turning my attention back to the present in my hands. As I opened the box, I gasped at what was inside. Trey and the family had gotten me the most beautiful necklace I had ever in my life laid my eyes on. It was all diamonds, rubies, and platinum…and it was from Cartier.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered as I brought one shaking hand to my mouth. “Oh, Trey… It’s exquisite.”

  “It’s from their Caresse d'Orchidées collection,” he said excitedly as he bounced up and down a on the balls of his feet. “We didn’t know if you’d like the orchid design but Aoife said it would look perfect with the dress Archer bought you for the ceremony.”

  He stared at me expectantly as I fingered the diamond and ruby flowers. “Do you like it?”

  Tears swam in my eyes as I looked up at him. “Trey, I… I love it. It’s so completely perfect, but I can’t accept it. It’s too grand,” I whispered as I glanced back down at the four hundred plus jewels that adorned the shiny platinum I was positive cost as much as a house.

  “Pish posh,” Trey dismissed with a delicate flick of his wrist. “You can accept it and you will. We got it for a very special girl to wear on a very special occasion. We wanted you to have something spectacular adorning that neck when you met the Cardinal Bishop.”

  I closed the box gently and held it to my chest a few seconds before I grabbed Trey in a one armed hug. “Thank you so much,” I whispered as he softly patted my back. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Don’t go making a big fuss now when you see Quinn and Hagan,” Trey warned as he gently thumbed a tear from under my eye. “You know they don’t like a big deal being made out of anything. That was the stipulation when they forked over their part of the money…but don’t tell them I let that slip.”

  “Boys,” I sighed as I looked at the black velvet box again. “Always so afraid of a little feminine emotion.”

  “No emotion is little with you, my darling,” Trey smiled ruefully at me. “You are a whirlwind.”

  “True that,” I conceded with a thoughtful tilt of my head.

  “Well, chop-chop, sugar!” Trey clapped his hands together twice in rapid succession. “Get dressed now. You don’t want to be late. Your plane is scheduled to leave at two and it’s already noon.”

  I smiled, quickly kissed his cheek and turned to walk across the hall to my own bedroom. Trey landed a firm smack on my ass as a reminder to hurry and I yelped and giggled as I hightailed it out of Archer’s bedroom.

  After blow drying my hair and putting on makeup, I dressed comfortably for the trip in ripped jeans and a tight black tank top. I grabbed my trusty messenger bag, my iPod, and my new necklace and was ready to rock.

  “Good morning, beautiful,” Archer purred as I walked into the living room. He looked good in his designer low-rise jeans and fitted white button down dress shirt. His eyes followed me hungrily as I crossed the room towards him, making my lower abdomen clench with need, reminding me that we hadn’t been intimate for entirely too long. If I hadn’t had so much on my mind the night before, I would have had my way with him like I wanted to do this very minute.

  “Good morning yourself, handsome,” I smiled as I wrapped my arms around his neck and stood on tiptoes to kiss him deeply. I pressed my chest flush with his and lost myself to the kiss. His breakfast was still cold on his tongue, the delectable taste of additive-free blood making me growl, as I slowly sucked on it. Archer returned my growl with one of his own and shoved his hands in my hair, deepening our kiss.

  “Och. Ge’ a room already,” Lochlan called from the kitchen table.

  Archer laughed and whispered against my lips, “Later, baby. For what I have planned for your body…well, let’s just say you’re not going to want an audience.”

  I tingled all the way down to my toes at his promise and gave a final quick swipe of my tongue to his full bottom lip. “I honestly can’t wait,” I breathed.

  “Do I have time to get some breakfast before the flight?” I asked Archer hopefully over my shoulder as I went over to hug Lochlan’s neck.

  “We’ll eat on the plane, baby. It’s already set up.”

  “Thank you for my beautiful necklace, Loch,” I whispered as I hugged his neck from behind.

  “Yer welcome, gorgeous,” he purred in his thick Irish lilt as he turned to look at me, wagging his eyebrows. “How’s abou’ a kiss goodboi?”

  I chuckled and rolled my eyes, but agreed and placed a big kiss on his left cheek.

  “Oh, feek,” he sighed dramatically as he placed his hand over his heart and wiggled back against my chest. “I shall miss those grand ‘ol larries while yer away. Aoife’s tits don’ hold a candle ta’ yers.”

  Smacking his shoulder, I leaned back up on a laugh. “Dirty old man.”

  “Keep your mind off my woman’s tits,” Archer said, giving him a stern look that quickly melted into a playful smile.

  “And just what exactly is wrong with my breasts?” Aoife asked as she flashed into the room, her hands on her hips and a haughty look on her lips.

  Lochlan opened his mouth to answer but Archer spoke up first. “You speak that thought and she’ll kick your ass, dheartháir,” he raised his eyebrows in warning as he fought a grin.

  Staving off the argument I saw coming, I flashed over to Aoife and threw my arms around her. “The necklace you picked out is the most amazing, perfect gift I’ve ever gotten.”

  She smiled brightly, hugged me back, and forgot about her bone with Lochlan, at least for the time being. “I knew it was meant for you the moment I saw it. I’m so happy you like it, Skye. You’re going to look so beautiful for your ceremony.”

  “I wish you guys could be there,” I sighed, pulling back.

  “Me too, but someone has to hold down the fort,” she grumbled as she flicked her long blond hair over her shoulder and resumed glaring at Lochlan. “Leave it to these boys and the only thing that’ll get done at the club is a few lonely women.”

  “Are ye’ callin’ me a slut, blondie?” Lochlan gasped as he feigned offense.

  “If the shoe f
its, man whore,” she smiled sweetly as she batted her long, fake eyelashes.

  “I take offense to that,” Trey drawled as he entered the room with Pádraig, Hunter, Quinn, and Hagan. “I’ve never had relations with a woman, thank you very much. Gah-ross!”

  “Well, I take offense to that!” Aoife scoffed in shock. “Women are far from gross. We’re soft, and sweet, and smell good.”

  “Aye,” Hunter winked as he threw his arm around me and lowered his nose to my neck. “They smell real, real good,” he rumbled lowly, sexily.

  Archer growled and smacked the back of Hunter’s head as I laughed and pushed him away from me, more for Archer’s benefit than mine. What can I say? Hunter is hot and fun to joke around with. There are worse things in the world than being flirted with by the gorgeous southern god.

  “I’m with Trey on this one,” Pádraig grinned, wrapping his arm around his boyfriend’s slim shoulders. Trey sighed and looked up at him with such adoration in his eyes; it was awesome to see them so in love.

  “Dick isn’t my thing, so I’m with Lochlan and Hunter,” Quinn chimed in. “Who’s up for some fine puss-”

  “Not in front of the females,” Hagan groaned as he shook his head exasperatedly from the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. “Have some tact, man. You ready to roll, Mr. Rhys? We’ve loaded the SUV.”

  “Aye, Hagan. You ready, baby?”

  “Almost,” I said then made my way around the room to give everyone one last hug and to thank them for the generous gift.

  “You take care, babe,” Hunter whispered as he hugged me tightly. I kissed his cheek and told him the same. I was going to miss my new family so much while I was gone.

  “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, boys!” I called over my shoulder as Archer led me out of the room.

  “That’s not saying much, wild child,” Hunter grinned and winked back.